This three part manga series (graphic novel in the anime style of drawing. Man-ga, pronounced with a cultivated and sophisticated ah) from Queenie Chan is just as scary and suspenseful as any horror film (which is amazing since it is in print and lacks the atmospheric soundtrack and big budget effects).

Set in the Australian outback at an exclusive co-ed boarding school twins Amber and Jeanie (the new students) discover the schools dirty little secrets; students regularly go missing, they wander into the bush and are never seen again. Jeanie is greatly affected by the happenings and its up to Amber to protect her sister at all costs. But there is something in the bush that doesn't want to be ignored.

Queenie Chan was born in Hong Kong but moved to Australia when she was a child. She wrote The Dreaming as a way to understand why one of her classmates disappeared in the Tasmanian wilderness (camping gear set up for the night but no girl), vanished without a trace. Knowing it is based on some truth makes the series even more disturbing. Could it be aliens, fairies, stumbling into an alternative universe? No matter what, there's something out in the bush, away from the safety of the city, we should never scoff at and write off as a silly dreamtime story.

Read it alone, at night with only a candle, on Halloween. Go on, I dare you.